Review: Rumors
By Alec Clayton
Published in The News Tribune
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| Mark Peterson, left, and Jess Allan, photo courtesy Tacoma Little Theatre |
Neil Simon’s “Rumors” at Tacoma
Little Theatre is loud, raucous, fast-paced, witty and pretty much over the top
from curtain to curtain, and the laughter of the opening night crowd was just
as loud as the gesticulating and shouting actors on stage. There is little
subtlety or nuance in this comedy. But where there is subtlety, it is golden —
as when the overly nervous Chris Gorman (sharply portrayed by Jess Allan) gets
mad at one of the other guests and hisses like a cat. It’s an action that takes
no more than two seconds, but it is perfectly played and brings down the house.
The action takes place in the
Manhattan apartment of the Deputy Mayor of New York and his wife, neither of
whom ever appear on stage. It is their 10th anniversary and they’re
throwing a party, but when the guests arrive, Charlie, the Deputy Mayor, has
attempted suicide and missed, just shooting his ear lobe. He is shut up on an
upstairs bedroom and his wife has left. Nobody knows where she has gone.
The beauty of setting the play
in a single apartment on a single evening is that no set or costume changes are
required — except when Lenny (Matt Garry) comes downstairs wearing a bathrobe
and sporting a bandaged ear, pretending to be the Deputy Mayor and giving a couple
of incredulous cops a long and absurd explanation of why gunshots were reported
and why all the obviously well-heeled guests are acting so strange.
A lawyer named Ken (Mark
Peterson) and his wife, Chris (Allan), are the first guests to arrive, and Ken
decides nobody can know that Charlie shot himself. When the next guests arrive,
Lenny and his wife, Claire (Jill Heinecke), they make up stupid excuses about
why Charlie and his wife aren’t there, excuses that keep getting more and more
implausible because their stories are too wild to be believed. The plot
thickens when a psychiatrist named Ernie (Jefferry Swiney-Weaver) and his wife,
Cookie (Shelleigh-Mairi Ferguson) show up. Cookie, who stars in a cooking show
on TV and who periodically screams and contorts her body with severe back
spasms, volunteers to cook dinner because the servants are mysteriously
missing. Into this chaotic mixture come Glenn Cooper (Houston White), who is
running for state senator, and his wife, Cassie (Kristen Blegen Bouyer), a
new-agey vamp who keeps rubbing herself with a crystal and accusing her husband
or infidelity. There are a lot of whispered rumors of infidelity involving
various characters, thus the title, “Rumors.”
The cast is comprised of
experienced actors who not only play their parts well but are clearly having
fun doing it. They are every one deserving of special mention, but two in
particular stand out. They are Peterson and Garry. Peterson, who has a booming,
guttural voice and a demanding stage presence is sometimes overwhelming, but in
this role shouting and over acting is called for, and he does it magnificently.
And Garry is physically and verbally spot-on. In this role he reminds me of
classical comedians like Sid Caesar and Jackie Gleeson.
Finally, I must say the set by
Blake York is wonderful. The entire apartment with its staircase and
floor-to-ceiling windows is patterned after a Piet Mondrian painting with
everything but the diagonal of the staircase being rectangles and squares in
primary red, yellow, white and blue with black lines. It’s all a bit retro for
being set in 1989, but absolutely gorgeous.
If you like a good farce, this
one is one of the best, cleverly written and performed by great actors.
Warning: there is a liberal sprinkling of language that might be offensive to
some.
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday-Saturday,
2 p.m. Sunday, through Oct. 1
WHERE: Tacoma Little Theatre, 210
North I Street, Tacoma
TICKETS: $20-$24
INFORMATION: 253-272-2281,
www.tacomalittletheatre.com
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